1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for providing packet data services to a user of a mobile terminal (MT).
2. Description of the Related Art
A user of a MT may subscribe to packet data services in a packet data network. In particular, the user may subscribe to receive broadcast/multicast service (BCMCS).
BCMCS services are intended to provide flexible and efficient mechanism to provide multimedia services to subscribers. One of the objectives for this service is to send the same information to multiple users. The transmitted information could be packet data such as text, voice and streaming media. As of today, a BCMCS controller delivers BCMCS services directly to the MT or via a packet data service node (PDSN). The PDSN is responsible for supporting authentication mechanisms and a configuration option to allow a terminal to receive Internet Protocol (IP) services such as VoIP (Voice over IP) and more generally voice/data multimedia over a wireless cellular network.
BCMCS subscription is associated with BCMCS programs provided by a BCMCS content provider (e.g. News Channel, Sports Channel), not the content (media type such as music, video, etc.). The subscriber selects a desired program and therefore selects the type of content he wishes to receive.
Furthermore, a transmission territory for each BCMCS program can be independently defined. BCMCS programs may be transmitted to all or selected zones of a packet data network. These zones constitute the transmission territory. The BCMCS programs may be received by all users or may be restricted to a group of subscribers via encryption.
The subscriber that wishes to receive BCMCS programs from a BCMCS capable network may discover the BCMCS controller that provides information of the available programs within the transmission territory where the subscriber is located. In particular, the subscriber may discover via its MT the BCMCS controller in the packet data network that provides the requested programs. Some solutions have tried to encompass the above problem.
A BCMCS controller may also be retrieved via mechanisms other then those provided by the BCMCS controller. These mechanisms may be via Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) or via Short Message Service (SMS) sent to the subscriber. Therefore, one of the existing solutions is to have only one BCMCS controller in the network and to provide an IP address that BCMCS controller to the MT via Internet.
Another solution allows only one BCMCS controller for a network and further populate during a PPP session establishment the IP address of the BCMCS controller. Alternatively, another solution could be to have multiple BCMCS controllers and further populate the corresponding IP addresses of these BCMCS controllers to the MTs located in the packet data network.
However, these solutions involve an amount of data that is not scalable in a packet data network and require that a Domain Name Server (DNS) application at the MT to be link layer agnostic for allowing a host such as the MT and a network to authenticate each other for network access to the MT. Consequently, this results in having a link breaks the IP layering rules for transmitting IP packets over specific link layer protocols. Therefore, there is a need to provide a solution for providing an IP address of a BCMCS controller to the MT in scalable way while maintaining the criteria of selecting a BCMCS controller for an MT without breaking the IP layer rules and in a way to be used for any access type.